LAMARCK, la'mark', Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, CHEVALIER DE, French scientist, a pre-Darwinian evolutionist: b. Bazentin, Picardy, 1 Aug. 1744; d. Paris, 18 Dec. 1829. He was of noble family, entered the army in 1760, but was compelled on account of an accident to abandon active military service, after which he devoted his attention to study, first to medicine; afterward, after hearing Jussieu's illustrations of botany, he turned to the study of that science. Jussieu had inti mated that the old method of classification in botany was defective and Lamarck determined to remedy the deficiency. He labored with great diligence on a treatise in which he showed the defects of the old classification, and pro posed a new one which met with general ap proval. He then applied his new system to the plants of France, and delivered to the Academy his
Lamarck now turned his whole attention to botanical research, and made several excursions to Auvergne, and into Germany, in the last of which he was accompanied by the son of Buffon. On his return to Paris he undertook the botani cal department of the encyclopzdia which Panckoucke was publishing, and applied himself to this task with such assiduity that, in 1783, he produced the first half of the first volume, with an introduction containing a sketch of the history of the science. He published the second volume in 1788. But a dispute between him and the publisher brought the undertaking to a stand, and ended Lamarck's botanical career. At the breaking out of the Revolution he was the second professor of the royal Jardin des Plantes, but in consequence of new arrange ments he received a chair in the department of zoology, in which he was soon as much dis tinguished as he had been in botany. In his writings he shows himself a real forerunner of Darwin. Lamarck's comprehensive mind was also directed toward physics, on which he pub lished several works. He published also a re
port annually on meteorology and weather pre dictions. His was published in 1802.
Lamarck is the founder of invertebrate palm ontology. The most permanently important work of his is 'Philosophie Zoologique) (1809), although at the time it was published it ex cited little attention. He was doubtless fa miliar with Erasmus Darwin's
Consult Butler, 'Evolution, New and Old) (1879) ; Claus,